Truly Noble Services, a home repair business in Garland, tried using a lead-generating company to find new customers without much success. James Easley, Truly Noble’s president, also tried to market his business online without seeing the return he had hoped.

So when a home repair startup called ClubLocal.com approached him about becoming one of its service providers in the company’s first market in North Texas, Easley didn’t take long to sign up for the new venture.

“It’s a very good fit,” Easley said. “They do the marketing, and we do the work.”

ClubLocal combines group buying with a reliable network of home repair providers to create a Web- and app-based service with which consumers can call on a handyman, plumber or electrician.

The selling point for consumers is this: The service is free to use, while prices are 20 percent below market on average, according to ClubLocal. The service also vets its vendors, making sure they are licensed and insured, and conducts background checks.

For two dozen service providers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area like Easley, the partnership offers additional back-office and technology support as well as the marketing prowess of ClubLocal, which has aired several television commercials locally and has put up billboards along North Central Expressway. For instance, ClubLocal provides its vendors iPads, which technicians use to provide estimates and online invoices.

Even though service providers agree to lower fees for ClubLocal customers, they expect to see increased sales volume in return. ClubLocal takes a percentage of each transaction.

Easley said he also was reassured by ClubLocal’s backing: Its parent is ReachLocal, a publicly traded, Los Angeles-based company with $375 million in annual revenue.

“Anybody who’s in business and deals with the public knows everything is going to the Internet,” Easley said. “It makes good sense to partner with someone at ClubLocal to reach the consumer.”

Diversifying streams of revenue is one way established small businesses can grow, said Judith Collins, a business adviser at the Dallas Small Business Development Center, which provides guidance and resources for entrepreneurs.

Part of the trick is finding the right strategy that also minimizes the downsides, Collins said. Small business owners need to weigh the cost and benefits of partnering with a company like ClubLocal to determine whether it makes “sense in terms of risk,” she said.

Since its launch in Dallas in July, ClubLocal says its merchant partners have reported an increase of up to 50 percent in service bookings due to the partnership.

Consumers, too, have given ClubLocal high marks on social media, including Facebook.

So far, ClubLocal vendors have completed about 1,000 jobs, including plumbing, electric, carpet cleaning, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning repair work.

Easley attributed a 20 percent increase in service calls to ClubLocal. By early next year, the business owner expects ClubLocal work to double. As a result, Easley said he’s looking to hire three more technicians to add to the existing 76-person workforce in D-FW.

ClubLocal is a “way to diversify, a way to increase our volume,” said Easley, who has additional offices and employees in Houston, Oklahoma and Louisiana. “It helps us stabilize our business.”

North Texas is the only market that ClubLocal is entering so far. Cynthia Neiman, ClubLocal’s vice president of marketing, said the company would evaluate other areas for expansion.

Instead of launching its new venture in its hometown of Los Angeles, ClubLocal chose Dallas as its first market because of several factors.

For starters, Dallas is a top-five media market with affordable homes, according to Neiman. The city also has a history of innovation and a target market of 35- to 55-year-old homeowners who need home repair services.

In a survey of 220 Dallas-area residents that ClubLocal commissioned, 80 percent of homeowners had at least one repair job that needed to get done, while more than 60 percent had two or more jobs, Neiman said.

That sort of potential demand for business is what attracted Michelle Johnson of Dial One Johnson Plumbing to join ClubLocal.

“By being a ClubLocal service provider, that drives the cost of [customer] acquisition down for us,” said Johnson, the family firm’s customer happiness manager and sales and marketing coordinator. “Now, ClubLocal provides a discount but I know that we will have ClubLocal calls today.”

Johnson said she is starting to see repeat ClubLocal customers who specifically request its service technicians.

“As their market share grows, our company will grow as well,” Johnson said.